page_title: Occupy movement
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Occupy movement / Protests / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: The second of two marches from downtown Oakland to the Port of Oakland that took place on Nov. 2, 2011. The march was part of the city's general strike that day, voted for by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on Oct. 26, 2011.
context_page_description: The Occupy movement is an international progressive socio-political movement that expresses opposition to social and economic inequality and to the lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aims primarily to advance social and economic justice and new forms of democracy. The movement has had many different scopes, since local groups often had different focuses, but its prime concerns included how large corporations control the world in a way that disproportionately benefits a minority, undermines democracy and causes instability.
  The first Occupy protest to receive widespread attention, Occupy Wall Street in New York City's Zuccotti Park, began on 17 September 2011. By 9 October, Occupy protests had taken place or were ongoing in over 951 cities across 82 countries, and in over 600 communities in the United States. Although the movement became most active in the United States, by October 2011 Occupy protests and occupations had started in dozens of other countries across every widely inhabited continent. For the first month, overt police repression remained minimal, but this began to change by 25 October 2011, when police first attempted to forcibly remove Occupy Oakland.
context_section_description: The Occupy Wall Street protests began in New York City on 17 September 2011. By 9 October, similar demonstrations were either ongoing or had been held in 70 major cities and over 600 communities across the U.S. The movement rejects existing political institutions and attempts to create alternative ones through direct action and direct democracy. Occupy protesters' slogan, "We are the 99%", asserts that the "99%" pay for the mistakes of the "1%".
  The original location of choice by the protesters was 1 Chase Plaza, the site of the "Charging Bull" statue, but when police discovered the planned site, it was fenced off and nearby Zuccotti Park was chosen. There was scant media coverage till 24 September when a large march forcing the closure of several streets resulted in 80 arrests. Police used a technique called "netting", the use of orange plastic nets to corral protesters, and the march received extensive media coverage when a video of several "netted" young women being pepper sprayed was widely circulated.
  Media coverage was again sparked on 1 October, when New York City protesters attempted to march across the Brooklyn Bridge and more than 700 arrests were made. Some said the police had tricked protesters, allowing them onto the bridge and even escorting them partway across before they began to make mass arrests. On 25 October, police officers cleared two Occupy Oakland protest camp sites. Police fired tear gas canisters at the protestors, allegedly in response to objects being thrown at them. Protest organizers said that many of the troublemakers were not part of the Occupy movement. The raid was described as "violent and chaotic at times" and resulted in over 102 arrests. Scott Olsen, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, suffered a skull fracture caused by a projectile that witnesses believed was a tear gas or smoke canister fired by the police. On 2 November, protesters in Oakland, California, shut down the Port of Oakland, the fifth busiest port in the nation. Police estimated that about 3,000 demonstrators were gathered at the port and 4,500 had marched across the city.
  At about 1:00 am on 15 November, police cleared the Zuccotti Park encampment. Many journalists complained that the police had made a deliberate decision to keep journalists away from the park during the raid. New York City journalists responded to what they perceived as "alarming suppression, abuse and arrests of reporters" by forming "The Coalition for the First Amendment" to "monitor police-press relations as a way of spotlighting police activities that threaten constitutional protections". Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie of the International Press Institute commented: "It is completely unacceptable to hinder reporting on a subject that is undoubtedly of public interest. Such reporting is vital to democracy, and authorities at every level of government – federal, state and local – must honour their constitutional obligation not to infringe upon the freedom of the press."
  On 6 December, Occupy Homes, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, embarked on a "national day of action" to protest the mistreatment of homeowners by big banks, who they say made billions of dollars off the housing bubble by offering predatory loans and indulging in practices that allegedly took advantage of consumers. In more than two dozen cities across the nation the movement took on the housing crisis by re-occupying foreclosed homes, disrupting bank auctions and blocking evictions. On 17 September 2012, protesters returned to Zuccotti Park to mark the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the occupation.
caption: One of the marches to the Port of Oakland during the 2011 Oakland General Strike on 2 November 2011
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-ZS8", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:02 17:44:14", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "1494", "Image SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "Image XPTitle": "[84, 0, 104, 0, 101, 0, 32, 0, 115, 0, 101, 0, 99, 0, 111, 0, 110, 0, 100, 0, ... ]", "Image XPComment": "[84, 0, 104, 0, 105, 0, 115, 0, 32, 0, 105, 0, 115, 0, 32, 0, 112, 0, 97, 0, ... ]", "Image XPAuthor": "sof2sfo@gmail.com (copyright-free)", "Image XPKeywords": "[79, 0, 97, 0, 107, 0, 108, 0, 97, 0, 110, 0, 100, 0, 44, 0, 32, 0, 79, 0, ... ]", "Image XPSubject": "[79, 0, 97, 0, 107, 0, 108, 0, 97, 0, 110, 0, 100, 0, 32, 0, 71, 0, 101, 0, ... ]", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "Image FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "155", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "11538", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7485", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "53/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:11:02 17:44:14", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:11:02 17:44:14", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "77/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "277/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4320", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3240", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}